Dirty Tricks, Dubious Claims and Racial Divisions: The Battle Over Charter Schools Goes to the Ballot Box

Dubious claims, boorish behavior, multimillion-dollar advertising battles, political and racial division, claims of dirty tricks, even billionaires.

It’s not only the stuff of the American presidential election, but of the pitched battle for and against the spread of charter schools on ballots across the United States.

On the same day they cast their votes for president—November 8—residents of one U.S. state will decide whether or not to remove a cap on the number of such schools, which are given public funding but operate free of the usual restrictions placed on conventional public schools. In other states, candidates for seats at every level, from school board to mayor to governor, are also scrapping over charter schools, often with the involvement of, and large sums of money from, determined pro- and anti-charter forces.

Battles over education “have always been passionate and intense, but they’ve always been more local than statewide and now they’ve expanded to the state level,” said Paul Reville, professor of educational policy and administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “There is an understandable interest of the mainstream in preserving the franchise, up against the desire of competitors to get a foot in the door...."

Read more at TES.